Mozilla enables WebRTC by default on Firefox Nightly releases

WEB BROWSER DEVELOPER Mozilla has turned on WebRTC by default on its Firefox nightly releases, suggesting it is getting closer to public release.

Mozilla has been working on WebRTC for some time now and showing off demonstrations of its capabilities that allow web developers to access hardware, creating applications that run within the web browser. Now the firm has enabled WebRTC by default on the Firefox Nightly release channel.

Mozilla's Firefox Nightly channel is a daily build of the web browser that integrates the latest bleeding edge developments. Though nightly releases are never recommended for production use, Mozilla's decision to turn on WebRTC by default suggests that it is nearing production status.

Mozilla had bundled WebRTC within previous Firefox beta releases, however the user had to go into the about:config settings and enable it.

Mozilla said, "Previously, you needed to go to about:config in Firefox and set the media.peerconnection.enabled option to true, but now it's enabled by default. This is a huge step forward, to be able to run WebRTC directly in a web browser without it needing any special settings or configuration."

Along with Mozilla's increased confidence in WebRTC, the organisation has also introduced a tiled Windows 8 user interface for those that must have Microsoft's latest look. Mozilla has also enabled H.264 and MP3 support by default in Windows 7, but it said it is still working on those features for Mac OS X and Linux users.

Mozilla's Firefox Nightly releases might be the bleeding edge, but given that Mozilla follows a six week release schedule, there is a strong possibility that these features will end up in the release channel within a few months. µ